No Rest For The Wicked
by greensight
Summary: MI6 decides, for convenience, that the easiest way to continue using Alex without constantly making up excuses is to fake his death. Alex agrees, on one condition: he gets to attend his own funeral. Crack, oneshot, for SpyFest 2017 week two.


A short explanation: the prompt was to use a poem as inspiration, and I was struck with the idea to go with a very literal interpretation of the last two lines of 'Do not stand at my grave and weep' by Mary Elizabeth Frye: ' _Do not stand at my grave and cry; I am not there. I did not die.'_ In all seriousness this poem is so beautiful and holds a dear place in many hearts, mine included. Perhaps it should inspire a piece that's very serious and angsty. But I really just fancied something lighter tbh. So, this happened. 100% parody, not meant to be taken seriously.

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Alex Rider's funeral took place on the brightest, sunniest day of the year, and Alex felt slightly offended.

"Isn't there supposed to be gloom and stormclouds and thunder?" he mused aloud.

His fellow passengers exchanged glances. They were currently cruising along in the back of a sleek car with blacked-out windows. It was surprisingly spacious inside, with the level of luxury that Alex had come to expect as one of the only perks of working for MI6. There was even a miniature champagne holder that Alex discovered would rise between their seats if he pressed a button, but someone had surreptitiously removed the complimentary champagne, perhaps out of tact.

"You know that only happens in movies, right, Cub?" Eagle smirked.

Alex shot him a death-glare. "My life is practically a movie," he shot back. "Isn't the universe supposed to mourn when a teenager is tragically taken before his time?"

Snake looked especially amused. The SAS man leaned back in his seat and folded his arms, studying Alex with interest. "You do realise you're not actually dead, don't you?"

"That's not the _point_ ," Alex sighed, but let the matter drop.

When he'd said that he wanted to attend his own funeral, Alan Blunt's mouth had twisted into an unnatural, ghastly curve that Alex thought might have been a smile of amusement. He'd been relieved when Blunt realised he wasn't joking, and his face resumed its normal, stony quality.

"If you were any other agent, I'd fire you on the spot for suggesting such a stupid idea."

"But unlike any other agent, I'd actually welcome the opportunity to be fired, so you won't."

Blunt's face took on a "you are testing me" expression that honestly terrified Alex more than any of the horror movies he'd watched with Tom. But he stood his ground.

"I want to go," he said. "Or I'm not going to agree to _your_ stupid idea."

He could barely believe his ears when Blunt had quite nonchalantly announced the plan. _Your last mission was very well handled, Alex… We're thinking of sending you to Rome at some point in the near future… Coffee with two sugars please, Miranda… Oh, and we're going to fake your death._

From a logical standpoint, Alex has to acknowledge that it made a certain amount of sense. At this point, he suspected that someone in MI6 was working their way through a 'Deadly Diseases Manual' in alphabetical order to come up with the excuses for him missing so much school. He'd supposedly become a magnet for these awful, unpronounceable afflictions, and sooner or later one of them was bound to kill him.

Still, it wasn't exactly a decision Alex could agree to lightly.

"You do realise that we don't actually need your consent, right?" said Blunt.

Ouch. That was a low blow.

"Of course I do," Alex snapped. He was very much aware of the fact that he was completely and utterly powerless to the morbid whims of Alan Blunt and Tulip Jones. "But I thought you'd gotten the message over the years that it's better for all of us if you let me have some compromises."

Like the time they'd tried to take him away from Jack and force him to live with an unspeakably dull and extraordinarily rude desk agent, who'd exclusively referred to him as "brat" and didn't seem to know his actual name. Alex hadn't been able to simply up and leave. But he had been able to have every window in the man's house egged by the combined task-force of himself, Tom and Sabina ("Animals!" the wailing agent had called them as he was picking chunks of yolk out of his hair) after which the agent had refused to take him back, and Alex had very unfortunately been forced to return to Jack's custody.

Alex enjoyed the way that he was able to make Alan Blunt visibly shudder at the thought of what Alex might do if he didn't get his way this time. If attending his own funeral wasn't an option, then crashing it might be the next best thing, and actually potentially more exciting…

"You can go," Blunt said, well, bluntly. "But you're having a military escort. And if you get close enough that _anyone_ might be able to recognise you…"

"I know, I know. You'll have me hung, drawn and quartered, and then you'll send me on a suicide mission to Botswana. Can I go now? I have some dying to do."

So that was how he found himself wedged between two SAS men, with Wolf driving in the front after a quick but brutal game of rock-paper-scissors. Wolf himself had almost rolled his eyes out of his head when he heard what they'd been assigned to do. Snake had seemed doubtful about the entire situation, pointing out the risk of Alex being recognised, but Eagle seemed to understand Alex's wish to attend.

"I'd want to know what people were saying about me at my funeral, as well," he'd said in Alex's defence, and Alex had nodded sagely.

"That's only 'cause you're an insufferable narcissist, Eagle," Snake had countered, and Alex couldn't bring himself to disagree with that, either.

"We're almost there!" Wolf called now, as the car turned down a long lane and the graveyard ominously came into view. "Bloody crowds…"

He slammed down on his horn, making a group of schoolchildren jump and then scuttle across the road in fear for their lives.

"It's bank holiday Monday," Eagle pointed out. "And it's sunny."

"Exactly!" Alex enthused. "It doesn't exactly set the scene, does it?"

"Stop being such an attention whore, Cub. And get out the car. We're here."

The event itself turned out to be a more dramatic affair than Alex had anticipated. When he'd "died", he could count on one hand the number of people who had still been speaking to him. But the turnout today made Alex wonder for a moment if they'd accidentally stumbled into the wrong funeral. But no - there were the people from Brooklands, and there was a very old and very bad photograph of him, surrounded by a ring of flowers in the middle of it all. Alex grimaced. Out of all the pictures to crystalize him in immortal memory, they had to choose the one with _that_ haircut?

Both Blunt and Wolf had told Alex very sternly that they were to stay on the side-lines, and he'd agreed that it was probably for the best. A heavily disguised teenager and three very fit men probably did look a bit odd. But in reality, nobody seemed to give them a second glance. People had turned up that Alex wasn't even sure that he recognised himself.

K Unit seemed surprised too.

"I thought you weren't supposed to have any friends," Wolf commented with all the subtly of a sledgehammer.

Alex scowled at him, but when he saw a burly kid who had his arm firmly wrapped around his girlfriend's waist, he became rightfully indignant.

"That guy punched me in the stomach when I was twelve," he muttered. "Asshole. What the hell is he doing here?"

"I guess death does wonders for your popularity, eh, Cub?"

"If you _really_ want to test that theory, Eagle, I'm more than happy to kill you."

The speeches were short, which Alex suspected was related to the fact that the people giving the speeches knew he wasn't actually dead. Jack and Tom both said a few words, and Alex made a point of smirking right at Tom throughout his entire eulogy, making it as hard as possible for him to keep a straight face. The poor boy practically leapt from the podium as soon as he'd read the last card, and a few moments later, Alex looked down and grinned to see a text message that simply read ' _u dick_ '.

"What did Six tell everyone you died of, anyway?" Snake asked, as the empty coffin was lowered into his grave.

Alex scrunched up his nose. "Pneumonia complications, I think."

His eyes were on Jack, who was watching the coffin with very wide, unblinking eyes, Sabina's arm around her shoulders. The redness in her eyes wasn't faked. Guilt flashed through him. He knew this was hard on her… she'd confessed to him, more than once, about moments when he'd been away on missions, where she'd had nightmares about this very situation.

"I'm going closer," Alex said impulsively, and he was gone before Wolf could grab him by the scruff of the neck.

One particularly weepy girl was being comforted by her friend. He thought her name was Jessica, although he wasn't sure as he couldn't remember ever having a relationship with her that extended beyond lending her a pencil sharpener once in Year 8. Nonetheless, she seemed to be taking his passing pretty hard.

"He was j-just s-so… so _nice_ , you know?" she hiccupped. Her friend patted her on the back sympathetically.

"Yeah, he was pretty nice," her friend agreed. "Until he started taking drugs. Then he just went kind of weird."

Eagle, who had sidled up beside Alex at this point, earned himself an elbow in the ribs for snickering.

Jessica's eyes grew wide as saucers.

"You can't s-s-say that, Amy! He's d-d-dead!"

Alex saw Amy's eyes roll. "It's not like he can hear us, Jess."

"Oh, the irony," Alex muttered.

Unfortunately, not quietly enough. The two girls turned around, both frowning at him despite Jessica's ongoing sobs.

"Who are _you_?"

Alex was suddenly incredibly thankful for the disguise that Blunt had literally forced upon him before letting him attend to funeral (to the point where Blunt had threatened to personally hold Alex under a sink and pour the dye into his hair himself). The oversized shades, too, made his face mostly unrecognisable, even if they did make him look slightly dickish.

"I'm Maurice," he lied smoothly, with a heavy French accent, "Alex's cousin."

"Oh," said Jessica. "You must be s-so upset."

Alex made a show of dabbing at his eyes under the rim of the shades. "I know. It's just so emotional, isn't it? Poor Alex… gone so soon…"

Which sent Jessica into another fit of wails, and poor Amy – the real victim of his demise, Alex decided – was too busy comforting her hysterical friend to notice him slip away. Well, be dragged away.

"Okay," said Wolf, closing a firm hand around Alex's arm, "You've had your fun." And he escorted him brusquely from the scene.

"Seriously, Cub?" Wolf shook his head. "I'm starting to think you're _actually_ enjoying the attention."

Alex shrugged. "Well, I might as well make the most of it while I can, right?"

Now, it was the SAS men's turn to frown.

"What do you mean?" asked Snake, sounding genuinely confused.

Now they were a safe distance, Alex removed the sunglasses, ran a hand through his hair, and sighed. "You don't get it, do you? That entire crowd—" He waved a hand in illustration "—with the exception of like three people, think I'm actually dead. They're mourning me now, but in a few weeks' time they'll go back to their lives and forget about me. I, on the other hand, can never interact with anyone I used to know except Jack, Tom and Sabina, in case word gets around that I'm actually alive. In terms of social life, I am well and truly _dead_."

Despite his good humour about the situation, deep down, it really stung. And it sent a shiver down his spine. MI6 had succeeded in severing him from anything he had been before they came into his life, in the most permanent way possible. There really was no going back to his old life now.

He saw the SAS man exchange looks. Then Eagle punched him in the arm.

"Don't be such an emo, Cub. You're still kicking."

"Yeah," Snake chimed in. "Besides, you're hardly on your own. You've got your Jack and your Tom. And you've got us."

Alex eyed them. This wasn't the first time he'd been with the unit since training. A few months ago, they'd been stationed together in Prague, as his backup. Actual, tangible backup was another condition that Alex had managed to wheedle out of Blunt after two years of solo missions. K Unit had been chosen because of his familiarity with them, even if they'd gotten off to a rocky start at Brecon Beacons. Sure enough, the bad blood between them had soon faded. As much as Wolf grumbled about having to "babysit the kid", he knew that Wolf had been worried when he'd been captured during the mission, and Eagle had embraced him a little harder than he needed to when they were eventually reunited, and Snake had fussed over his injuries with more concern than they warranted.

Did he _have them_ , really? He'd never properly considered K Unit to be his unit, although they'd jokingly referred to him as their fifth member more than once. Or maybe not-so-jokingly. There wasn't a hint of mockery in Snake's words, and Eagle was nodding in agreement.

"Half of those kids think you were a drug addict," Wolf grunted. "Like you said, they're only here because it's the talk of the moment. They'll forget all about you when you're not in the news anymore."

"Gee, thanks, Wolf. You're really making me feel a whole lot better."

"What I mean is that they're not really your friends. You don't need friends like that."

Alex fell silent. Wolf had a point...

"Aren't you gonna go to the – what d'you call it? The reception?" Eagle changes the topic.

"The afterparty?" Alex said drily, then shook his head. "I'm not allowed. It's too risky."

"I have an idea," Eagle was starting to grin. "Six told us to escort you to the funeral. They never told us where to take you afterwards."

A sly look crossed Snake's face. "Your flat is only five minutes away isn't it, Wolf?"

Understanding crossed Wolf's face, and he shook his head vigorously. "Absolutely not."

"Ever played any drinking games, Cub?" Eagle asked him, to which Alex shook his head, beginning to grin as he understood where this was going.

"Encouraging underage drinking?" he smirked.

Wolf squinted at him. "Wait, how old even are you?"

"You just heard my eulogy, Wolf. I'm pretty sure my tragic young age was mentioned at least five times."

"Shut up. Anyway, you can forget it. It's not happening!"

"Oh, come on, Wolf," said Snake. "The kid just _died_."

Snake's tone was joking, but there was something more meaningful beneath the surface of the words, and something very pointed in the look that Snake was giving Wolf. Finally, Wolf let out a long-suffering sigh.

"Fine. But if he turns out to be a weepy drunk, it's your shoulder he's going to be crying on."

"And if he turns out to be an angry drunk, it's your furniture he's going to be destroying!" Eagle said gleefully, throwing one arm round Wolf's shoulder and one arm around Cub's.

As they left the mourning procession, there was an oddly warm feeling in Alex's chest. He had a feeling that was going to forget that he was supposed to be dead, by the time the night was over. He didn't look back.


End file.
